The Blacksmith
by Fernstrike
Summary: "The darkest shadows are cast by the forge's brightest flame." Or, the seduction of Mairon, the fall, and his dark descent thereafter.


**_A/N:_** _This tale is told in prose-poetry style and uses epithets rather than character names. If the latter should prove confusing in any way, there's a clarifying note at the bottom._

* * *

 ** _"But in after years he rose like a shadow of Morgoth and a ghost of his malice,_**

 ** _and he walked behind him on the same ruinous path down into the Void."_**

 ** _\- "Valaquenta" Silmarillion_**

* * *

The anvil echoes agelessly - the Blacksmith wields the hammer. Beneath his hands, great wonders of the world are wrought, unending. He cannot cease his motions, lest he fall into despair. He must create 'til end of days, when all the worldly beams give way, crashing down to do him in. He cannot cease, by will or no. His curse is to be gifted, and in turn, he hopes, to gift - but tormented are his thoughts, as every hammer-strike and welding makes a tiny imperfection, and he'll never get it right. He must work and work until it's perfect, work into the night. His Lord, he gives a caution, but the Blacksmith doesn't heed it. He's got his skill, his power, and his pride; he doesn't need it.

Perhaps that's why the Shadow comes. Perhaps that's why he's chosen. _"What would you be?"_ he asks him, his voice nothing more than curious. _"If you break these iron bonds, I wonder what you'd be."_

He comes during the day at first, and lingers by the working desk; fiddles with the unbent metal, peers at yet-uncaptured jewels. When the Blacksmith grabs for them, annoyance bright in fiery eyes, the Shadow gives a rakish smirk. The Blacksmith looks down, shivering. He blames the forges for the ruddiness that daily plagues his cheeks, but even in his stubbornness he cannot now deny - the Shadow's words are sweet elixir, filling him with energy. What he says, it can be so - smithing is just the beginning.

Now and then, a word is said by some smith or another, and the Blacksmith's pride turns bitter, like a shining son unvalued. He loves his Lord, his Father too, but little cuts can still run deep. The Shadow sees this trickle could be widened to a flood. He says as much, and with a scoff, the Blacksmith still denies him; and yet in time, he sees the hidden fetter of his lord. The Shadow's prodding brings to life all that the Blacksmith sought to quash - deep and dormant anger, fear and loathing, dreadful dark.

He'd rather not listen lest his Lord's caution be a doom, but he's trapped, the forge is stifling, and here's his sweet solution. It thrills him to admit it - he's begun to trust the Shadow, for he's proud to call him 'admirable', and let him glimpse true power. He fills the Blacksmith with a fire, hotter than the holy forges. When he holds the door ajar, the Blacksmith steps through willingly.

He comes in the night after that - the Blacksmith can then find no peace. The visits, they are far too brief, but give the Blacksmith life. The Shadow's touch is like a feather, or a white-hot iron blade. His body? More than holy, though the Blacksmith knows the tales. In that time he burns so bright - arches his back - cries to the sky - thinks he can see the Eternal Flame, just in the corner of his eye. He's left alone, with nary a word, and rages to sea and to stars alike; he curses the world he's always known, and wishes for something _more_. He must create it, but creating this needs more than ore and hammer. It needs to find that brightest flame, to forge the greatest wonders. He knows the Shadow brought him closest, knows, with him, he's seen it. So the Blacksmith grabs his cloak and boots and leaves his Father's shelter.

In that moment he is changed; he is given up unto a freedom and madness and a world ripe for the taking. His mutiny is quiet, 'til it rises to a flame. When he declares allegiance then, they strip him of his name - he won't heed it, though they say it, and he turns his gaze away. It cuts like iron, so he makes them hurt and beg and pray. He grows strong beside his Master, his eyes blazing with wildfire; it has always been a talent, shutting out what others say.

In the stone and iron deep, vast chambers have been wrought; beasts of flame and beasts of blood now populate this gaol. He marvels at the ugly things, and seeks, himself, to make them; he begs the Shadow teach him how to make the world their own. Why are these things wrong and strange, what of them is sinful? He's glad the Shadow never said creations could be evil.

He dons a cloak of red and black, an eye upon his brow. They don't call him the Admirable. He's the Abhorred now.

* * *

Together they wreak hell, never thinking of high water. They celebrate their fiery wars in blood and lust and laughter; they bring about the death of kings, the Gasping Dust thereafter. He sighs and moans in celebration, pinned beneath his master.

He makes an isle of darkness and with what the Shadow taught him, makes the deadliest of creatures, snapping wolves and baneful beasts. The fairest forest-daughter comes, and after her he goes. He grabs for her, his eyes aflame, and meets his match alone. The snapping jaws, the raking claws, and he is forced to flee, for she'd take his prime creation, take the flesh-house for his spirit. He gives away his tower as he drips blood on the trees. He contemplates not going back, despairing what he'll meet. The Shadow nearly smites him, but what's this, that stays his hand? The Blacksmith doesn't know it, and the Shadow, much less so.

Together once again, he heals. Their fury now compounded, they set about to bring a war to leave the dead uncountable. The eve of battle finds their careful plans knocked off the table; they move as one, in oaths and sweat, as long as they are able.

The darkness comes at dawn and all the world is then upended. Their contest rages, fury tearing at body and spirit. The Shadow's might that he helped make devolves, disintegrates as armies fall and armies fail, and death and blood make law and land. He's given up to madness as they make their final stand. They fight and fight but cannot win, and deep within their mountain home, he's tasked to flee but does it not - he made himself this tether. The simple truth: when all things fail, they will go down together.

* * *

White light on a barren field, life amid the death - the Herald lifts his battered form, sighs with sacred breath: _"What are you, that you have done such things beyond your fate?"_ But what does he then know of fate? He has no such doom.

The Blacksmith learns what passed, when he, half-broken and half-senseless, laid upon the steps of their grand halls, just beyond his Master. What befell the Shadow? He fell beyond the Door. He's locked away inside the Void, to be heard nevermore.

 _"Bow your head,"_ whispers the Herald. _"Speak, and they will listen. You had a choice, and now, believe me - humbled, you will have one more."_ Humbled? He cannot be so. He's the Blacksmith, not a little sniffling creature. He listens, just half hearing at the rest the Herald says. Then he fakes a promise, fleeing, hiding in the land's dark places.

Sometimes when the nights are quiet, and the clouds reveal a star, he thinks, across the empty World, he hears his Father's voice. Lone and brooding in the dark, he feels it like a silver knife-point on the little shred, the blackened lump that is his heart. The Herald's sorrowed words, remembered - _There is hope for you, my friend. You walk into the depths of ruin. Know you do not have to. 'Admirable' can be retaken. In your pride, our Father's light and love you have forsaken. He has not forsaken you._

The same ruinous path he's chosen - yes, he chose it, he himself. He needs not pity, nor despair, his Father's or aught else. The Herald rightly said, the chance was given, and again — but if he'd taken it, he'd be a traitor to himself. To be ruined is his destiny, and this his Father knows - or he ought to. This is him, what he stands for, and he dare not mourn. He will gladly walk this road, on sharpened rocks, breathing ash, embittered and ensnared 'til he descends into the Void.

So given now the chance, it's he who must pursue the work. He will do or he will die. This is who he is - the Blacksmith.

* * *

He finds the Elven lands, and though the righteous lords won't deign to see him, there's a guild he learns of - there, he knows, is where he shall begin. Look at all the gifts he brings, lord of all such wonders; how easily they let him in, the wolf among the sheep.

Now's his turn to be a shadow, close behind this other smith. Pure is his ambition and his cause is sickly noble. This Guild-smith with his raven hair and eyes with righteous fire; he'll never know his task will be for an end undesired. Silken is the Blacksmith's voice, and his fingers as they slip around a calloused hand that grips a hammer for his work. "What a talent you do have," he purrs. "Oh so precious." The ancient words hit back at him. " _I wonder what you'd be."_

What a virtue it has been to learn beside his master. He's clever now to use his tongue for words when daylight peers inside. Night provides a subtler, silken use to skilled practitioners. Skin on skin, he learns his way, but well he does succeed. It is one thing to mesh two spirits, divine at their zenith. It is another thing to please with corporeal bodies. This Guild-smith, what a simple little thing who gasps and sighs. The Blacksmith's work is easy, there between the Guild-smith's thighs.

That's why the Guild-smith doesn't see it coming when he's left alone, and thinks his gift of trust is worth the Lord of Gifts' allegiance.

Oh, not so - and in the fires of his forge the Blacksmith rises, _twists the darkness, twists the malice, twists the cruelty unbonded, fetters it in gold and blood, he fetters it with all he musters, fetters it to rule the land of his, and of his Master's._

Spent upon the rock he lies, and it's like older days, when beside his master he would lie, his spirit overwhelmed. The little thing, the golden ring - this is what he's made for — perfection in the utmost. If he could but show the Shadow.

But behold! The Guild-smith knows, and in his rage the Blacksmith seeks, and he makes war and rages - who dares hamper his creation? He finds him, yes he finds him, and no plea on earth could stop him, and he breaks him, hurts him, in the guise with which he had seduced him. What is that, now in his eyes? Could it be betrayal? Sunken, bruised, and tortured eyes. To shut them, he's impaled.

* * *

Deep within his shadow-home, the Blacksmith tries to forget all. Weak he is, but weaker still are those he must destroy. For himself and for the Shadow, under his dominion they must lie and work and suffer; this is what he must create. As his powers grow, and his creations grow in darkness and in power and in fellness, he is set upon by Men. He knows what he should do now - he's excited thus, to test it. He gives himself up freely, and he tolerates the jeers; in record-time he can be found whispering in the King's ear.

Let him do now what he will; let him build a temple and a shrine unto the Shadow, a creation dark and worthy. Let him warp their faith and ego, write their history with blood of their own people, sacrifice the Faithful 'neath a throbbing sun.

They listen and they cut the Tree; they listen and they build the ships. Behold his skill, he makes them do his bidding without whips. Through it all, he sits alone at night before the altar - he wonders, in the Void beyond the world, is he unseen? He is a flame just for himself, to mould this world he's bound to; there has been but one other that's deserving of his creations. He longs to hear that voice again, get drunk on that elixir - he casts his thoughts into the Void, and dreams of dreams in darkness. He writhes upon the temple floor, full-up with ecstasy; and when he cuts the throats at morning light, he is appeased.

His pride is blinding such that he can't see the gall of others; and his miscalculation was a price beyond the value of the gold and of the temples and the blood he spilt in cruelty. Cruel and abhorred, a beacon for a broken city. The forge's flames were always bright, and cast the darkest shadow. The wave comes down and snuffs the light, and leaves the flesh-suit hollow.

* * *

No longer can he be the face the Shadow once desired. Those ruddy cheeks are pale as death, the vibrant life expired. He clothes himself in metal and he makes his home with wheels, gears and whips, providing rhythmic counterpoint to righteous melody. Greater battles they are fought and he is parted from that little thing, that ring, his masterpiece - he screams into the wind.

He makes his home in secrecy upon a naked hill, and he sends his servants tearing up the Kingdom as they will. He keeps an eye out for his ring, lidless and all-seeing - nevermore will he have mockery made of his being.

He still has something left in him — still he can create. They've not bested the Blacksmith, though there's little more to take. He does, then, what he's best at - he works until he breaks, lying in his Tower, exhausted. But what else can he do? The ancient children, they are leaving - he can take this world, he knows. For himself - and for the Shadow - oh, he must, _he must, he must._

Fight upon the burning fields. Tear apart the city walls. Rage upon the would-be heir. March upon the Morannon. March upon the - what is this? What is this thing that he's not seen? Is this it - his great creation, edging closer to the flames?

Fly! He urges all his creatures, take it back, this isn't it - this cannot be the end, unless he's meant to fail until he's spent.

Stars collapse - space divides. He is ripped out from inside, flailing, catching copper strands, and old forgotten melodies. Songs he sang - dreams he knew. Admirable things he made, and all the things there ever were, before he learned to hate.

He hears the darkness, animate, as he is rent asunder. The thunder claps inside his ears, sound of the disincarnate.

 _"Do not fear the yawning Void. Do not fear the pain."_

And in the fires of his own forge, the Blacksmith is unmade.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** __The epithets: Mairon is the Blacksmith and the Lord of Gifts; Melkor is the Shadow and his Master; the Father is Illúvatar; the Lord is Aulë; the Herald is Eonwë; the Guild-smith is Celebrimbor._

 _This was completed for B2MeM 2017. The wildcard prompt was selected from a previous challenge, to write a story where seduction played a central role. I tried to do it as a prose-poetry style piece._

 _I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you for reading!_


End file.
